


Why I Hate Murmansk

by Deannie



Series: The Losers' Tour Book [3]
Category: The Losers - All Media Types
Genre: Community: hc_bingo, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-04
Updated: 2014-09-04
Packaged: 2018-02-16 03:36:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2254410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deannie/pseuds/Deannie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Our transport can’t do a damn thing about this and we all know it. I’ve scrubbed airborne missions in calmer skies. Hell, I’ve crashed missions in calmer skies and Cougar’s got the scars to prove it. “Daylight’s 14 hours away!” Roque looks at Clay, strung between me and Cougar. “No way the Colonel’s going to last that long.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Why I Hate Murmansk

**Author's Note:**

> For the hc_bingo prompt: loss of personal property

“Damn it, Jensen, come on," Roque barks, glaring at Jake. "We need evac.”

Ain’t gonna happen, Roque. I try to take a deep breath, but the wind is blowing like a mother and I’m carrying half a deadweight Colonel. Jensen's barely holding it together. Least Roque and Cougar are FOD. Fuck, this mission went to hell real quick now, didn’t it? Not that it sounded like an easy one when we got it.

* * * * *

“A quick in and out, boys,” Clay had said, throwing us each a pack of cold weather gear and handing Jake a CD full of intel. “Retrieve and destroy. We need to get into a science facility outside of Murmansk and retrieve a master disk containing information on the latest American and Russian weapons tech and then destroy the computers in hopes they haven’t moved any copies off site.”

Roque had been his usual bitchy self. “Isn’t this Russia’s job?”

He did have a point, though.

Clay had ground his teeth, acknowledging the stupidity. “CIA is making nice with Putin these days,” he said coldly. “Seems this facility is run by some not-so-unofficial underlings and he wants it swept under the rug.”

“Is that the truth, or the conspiracy version?” Roque had asked. Damn, that man has some balls. Someday I swear Clay’s going to cut them off.

Clay had grinned that grin he gives before he takes you down. “Conspiracy would be if they were setting all this up just to take us Losers down.”

* * * * *

Looking back, I’m wondering if Clay’s not right about that last one.

Murmansk in the fall. What the hell were they thinking with this? Winds so far north this time of year are as unpredictable as… as _Jake_.

“ _Shit!_ ” J. whispers unsteadily before clicking his radio on again. “Say again, Freebird. Did not copy. Over.”

He heard all right. He just can’t believe it. The answer comes over all our headsets once more for good measure.

“Winds are gale force, Pinball. Extraction is a no-go. Will reassess at daylight.”

“Daylight,” Roque says, not bothering to thumb his own set on. Our transport, aka Freebird, can’t do a damn thing about this and we all know it. I’ve scrubbed airborne missions in calmer skies. Hell, I’ve _crashed_ missions in calmer skies and Cougar’s got the scars to prove it. “Daylight’s 14 hours away!” He looks at Clay, strung between me and Cougar. “No way the Colonel’s going to last that long.”

“Don’t take over my command yet,” Clay mutters, coming to slowly. Has to be hell on his chest, us carrying him this way, but it ain’t like we had a choice. It was move or die for all of us by that point. “Situation?”

“FUBARed as always, sir,” Jensen replies in a near whisper. I’d like to think he’d be a little more his usual adrenaline junkie self if he didn’t have blood running down the whole side of his face. Amazed he's still conscious. Shit, we need to find a place to hole up and assess damages until we can figure a way out of here.

“Freebird is grounded and we’re still firmly nestled in the heaving bosoms of Mother Russia,” Jensen recaps. He leaves out the part where he and Clay both got nailed and half the officially unofficial science facility is looking for us.

“So we get out—” Clay tries to straighten up and nearly passes out on us. “We get out. Find a transport.”

Well obviously. Just not a lot of transports out here in the frozen fucking tundra, sir.

“Colonel, right now, we need to find a hole and figure out how bad you and Jensen are hurt.” Roque’s taking command whether Clay wants him to or not. Thank God.

“Jensen?” Clay looks up, and just moving his head to find Jake makes him go gray. Fuck. "You okay, kid?"

“I’m good, sir,” Jake says, tossing it off. Which means it’s serious. He bitches and moans like a little girl at a paper cut, but carries Cougar out of a burning helicopter with a bullet in his arm. Kid’s certifiable. Also currently pissed as hell. He won’t even look at Cougar.

“Pistol round to the head, Colonel,” Roque says coldly, narcing as only he can. “Bounced off his thick skull.”

Clay tries to stand on his own and get a better look and passes back out, finally.

“We need to get to ground,” Cougar mutters, failing to catch Jake’s eyes while hefting the colonel higher on his shoulder. Those two fighting is just annoying as shit—like watching ten-year-old girls fight.

Totally unnecessary, too. Yes, Cougar fired the shot that triggered the C4 in Jake’s pack that blew the pack and the surrounding computer banks all to hell and _yes_ , he didn’t bother to retrieve Jake’s computer before he did it. Given that Jensen was lying across the room bleeding all over from a fucking head wound, I’d’ve thought he’d call it acceptable losses.

“There’s a fuel stop on the road to the E105,” Jake says, glaring at Cougar to let him know he’s ignoring him and then looking blearily at the map he keeps in his pocket. He crumples the thing all to hell putting it back. “Gotta be a place to hole up between here and there.”

“And there we can probably grab something to get us over the border into Norway,” Roque agrees.

“Kirkenes can’t be more than four hours away,” I say, remembering the local area. “If there isn’t an early snow.”

“And if they haven’t closed the border,” Cougar just has to put in.

“We’ll deal with that when we have to,” Roque says, looking at the colonel. “For now, we find a hole.”

Jake grumbles something under his breath before he stumbles after us with no pack to heft. Shit’s gonna hit the fan here soon. Unless we’re lucky and he passes out on us.

* * * * *

So, it turns out “hole” ain’t far from the truth.

At least we’re out of the wind, but the little supply shack next to a yurt full of road salt is only just big enough to fit us.

Jake’s in better shape than we thought—bullet really did bounce right off. Well, tore a three-inch path just above one temple, actually. Got a good concussion going, too. And he’s quiet, which we all know is not Jake Jensen. Unless he’s pissed—which he still is.

The colonel, on the other hand, is a fucking mess. Rifle round went straight through his chest and he bled too damn much before we got here. Cougar’s got it stopped and bound for now, but we start moving, he’ll start bleeding again.

Not like we got any choice in the matter.

“I hope that damn disc is worth all this,” Roque gripes in the dark. Another reason to hate Murmansk. It ain’t even dinner time and it’s been dark for hours.

“Well, I can’t really tell,” Jake says quietly. Great. Here it comes. “I could pop it in my computer, but somebody _blew up_ Jimena.”

“It’s a fucking computer, Jensen,” Roque mutters. “Let it go.”

Now that was just stupid. Meanwhile, Cougar’s covered his whole face with his hat, but I don’t think that’s going to protect him much.

“Jimena wasn’t _just_ a computer, Roque,” Jake replies as he stands, his eyes narrowing in either pain or anger—hell, probably both. “She was a top-of-the-line deluxe, hand-built laptop.” He’d pace if there was room, I can see it. I can also see that he can’t focus for shit.

“She _knew_ me, all right,” he continues. “She was set up exactly how I wanted her. How I needed her.” He smacks Cougar’s hat off his head, which should earn him a quick knife thrust to the heart. “And you _killed_ her.”

The knife never comes out, of course, because Cougar’d rather die himself than hurt Jake. He’d blow up Jake’s fucking computer, too, if that’s what it took.

Figure it’s time for me to step in here.

“Okay, first, J.—that’s just sad. A computer ain’t your woman and it ain’t irreplaceable. And second—”

“But—”

“ _Second,_ Cougar had a choice of saving your head-shot ass or saving the damn computer. Least he was thinking clearly enough to blow the C4 rather than let the _whole_ damn mission go to hell.” Jake freezes, looking at Cougar, who still hasn’t looked up. “Yeah. So shut the fuck up, and—”

“Company.”

Roque’s soft call has me cursing, but at least it breaks the mood.

“How many?” Jake asks, wincing but sounding like the last five minutes never happened. I’m hoping it’s all the head wound talking, but you never know with Jake. He’s looking out the window now, trying to think through the current threat, though I’m not really sure how much he can actually _see_ with his brain scrambled.

“Five.”

“Their clothes gonna fit us?”

I smile. Jake’s a tricky shit when he needs to be. Roque and Cougar both pull out knives.

“Hey! Let’s not get blood on the tall, pretty guy’s uniform, okay?” Jake says. He’s trying like hell for normal, after finding out what really happened back there. Natural defense mechanism, he calls it. Sure as hell works to bring the room up.

“We’ll keep the colonel’s uniform clean, J.,” I tell him. “Don’t you worry.”

“Yeah, thanks. Not who I was talking about, of course.” He’s crowded behind Cougar with his gun in hand, but Roque stops him.

“Stay with the colonel.” I can see Jake start to say something, but Roque just ignores him. “Five coming in,” he murmurs. “Shut the fuck up and take ‘em down quiet.”

“You’re seeing double, J.,” I tell him quietly, pulling him back. “Just keep the colonel safe and shoot anyone who isn’t one of us, yeah?”

He grunts his disapproval. “How will I know it’s you if I’m seeing double?” he grumbles. Fucking five-year-old.

“There will be two of me.”

Cougar’s deadpan joke gets a snort and a reconciling, “That I’d pay to see.”

“I’d pay not to,” Roque grinds out. “Move out you two. All five down before retrieval.”

* * * * *

And that’s exactly how it happened.

We took them all down, dragged them in the shed, stripped them to their skivvies and now we’re headed to Norway in their transport. Which drives like a fucking cow.

“How’s the colonel?” I call back, as I ease us on to the P10. Halfway to Norway and we haven’t had a problem yet. My teeth are starting to itch.

“Breathing.” That’s all Roque’ll give me. He’s got the colonel stretched out across the third row of seats, lying on his knees.

“J.?” I call back, seeing only Cougar in the second row. “How about you?”

“Snoring,” Cougar calls back, a quiet grin on his face. Yeah, Jake’ll be fine. And I’m betting Cougar’s liking Jake in his lap more than Roque is liking the colonel in his.

The army radio which has been silent for the last couple of hours suddenly comes to life, spewing Russian. Which only the colonel and Jake speak.

“Coug, get J—”

“Fuck! Cougar, what?! I’m up!” Jake yells. I watch his head pop up in my rear view mirror and see him turn green.

“Do not puke in this truck,” I tell him sternly. I am _not_ dealing with that smell all the way to Kirkenes.

“The radio,” Cougar nudges, as it spews more Russian at us. Kind of a pretty language, I guess. Hoping they’re not telling me I’m going to die in that pretty language.

“Um…” Jake holds his head in his hands. “Gimme a minute. Uh… It’s a call to be on the lookout for a transport headed west on the P10.”

“Shit.” Thought we were doing okay! The voice on the radio keeps going.

“That’s us, huh?” Jake asks, barely keeping it together. “They’re closing the borders to Norway and Finland.” He hisses and pulls his hand away from the wound on his head, like he just figured out it hurt. “Something else about shoot to kill.”

I hear a mumble from the third row.

“Clay says Finland,” Roque says quietly.

Jensen lays his head against the seat back real careful-like. “Because it’ll be much more fun to climb out over the freaking fjords than just bluff our way across the Norwegian border.” Jensen’s sounding less and less like himself. Gotta get him and the Colonel somewhere safe. Which ain’t anywhere in the near vicinity.

“We can ditch the transport in Zapolyarny,” Roque says quietly. I’m not sure if he’s relaying the colonel’s orders or making up his own, but it’s as good a plan as any.

“I can get another transport,” I promise.

“God damn Russians,” Clay mutters. Must be feeling better if he’s talking loud enough that I can hear him. “Set us up.”

“Clay, if I have to listen to your God damned conspiracy shit all the way to Finland, I’m knocking your ass out now.” I never will understand how Roque gets away with that shit.

“I don’t know,” Jake says dully. “I’m starting to think he has a point. I mean, sure, you could look at this and say they were just covering their asses when we got caught, but it’s more fun to say they were gunning for us, specifically.” He sighs and starts to slump over. “Kinda of makes you feel special, doesn’t it?”

Cougar gently pulls him down to lay in his lap again as I keep driving. We’ll be on the outskirts of Zapolyarny in twenty minutes. If we don’t get shot up first.

“Makes me glad Cougar blew up your damn computer,” I say. “Think of what they could’ve dug up on us all.” Hell, I’m just twisting the knife now. See if we can’t get him riled up enough to complete this fucked up op. I ain’t carrying his ass across the border.

“I’m not done with that discussion, by the way,” Jake mutters.

“Ah, all they’d find is peewee soccer scores and cheap gay porn,” Roque says, adding fuel to the fire.

“Hey! I resent that,” Jensen grates, sitting back up fast. “I’ll have you know—” His eyes close and he swallows hard.

“Again,” I caution, “do _not_ puke in this truck.”

“We’ll requisition you a new one when we get to Stuttgard, kid,” Clay tells him, sounding just as rocky as Jake does. You know that ain’t going to make it better, Colonel.

“You can’t requisition something like Jimena, Colonel,” Jake replies. He’s clearly going for righteous indignation, but he’s already sliding back down the seat again. Cougar just guides him back to his lap for the third time.

Tough sons of bitches. Both of them. We’ll get ‘em to Finland somehow.

Because you can’t requisition crazy-ass techies or hard-ass colonels, either.

Guess we better keep the ones we got.

* * * * *  
The End


End file.
